Weeks 10 & 11 – Wiring problems and more

These last two weeks, I’ve been doing my best to get the engine started. However, I’ve been running into small problems that have been making it take much longer than I expected.

The first thing I did this week was clean up the engine. I wiped any access paint off of the engine block with paper towel and touched up the paint in a few places where the gasoline had eaten completely through the paint. I also used mineral spirits to get rid of paint streaks on the polished side covers. I also tried to repair the leaky fuel petcock. I believe the problem was that I lost a spring that kept the valve handle sealed. In the end, I ended up just buying a whole new valve assembly and mounting it in place of the old one.

I tried to charge my battery as well. This didn’t go well. The battery was reading about 3V before I attempted to charge it, and after several hours on a high amperage deep-cycle charge, it was only reading about 4.6V. I just decided to scrap the battery and buy a new one. This was easier said than done, as the battery isn’t apparently very standard, and Autozone didn’t have it. I spent a few days looking, and finally found one at a nearby NAPA. This led to me having the wonderful experience of filling a battery with acid – something that I’m going to be extraordinarily careful about in the future, as I ended up spilling sulfuric acid on my hands and the garage floor.

This done, I went about trying to get the ignition and started motor hooked up. However, when doing final checks on the wiring harness, I noticed something strange. My VOM was reading a ~10VDC charge on the wire between the starter solenoid relay and the starter button (shown below as red with a yellow stripe) when it was disconnected from the solenoid . This is odd, as it should have been entirely disconnected. Upon further analysis, the VOM read a ~3.6MΩ resistance between it and the charged positive lead on the solenoid. This meant there was likely an extremely low current short between the two wires.

Because these two wires were part of the low-current circuit to begin with, I decided to leave the short until after starting the engine. In my mind, the worst case scenario was a little bit of heat at the site of the short. And I was right, but I under estimated how much heat. When I grounded the starter wire, the solenoid activated as expected, and the starter motor turned the engine over… and then the harness caught fire.

IMG_0056

The damaged wires on the harness

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The harness mostly repaired

 

I shut it off quickly and determined the general area of the short by feeling wire and finding the place where it was hottest. Then I cut off the melted silicon wrap and put new insulation on the fault wires. After some thorough checks with the multimeter (which now showed no sign of the short), I tested the starter circuit again. This time, the bike turned over and the wires stayed perfectly cool to the touch.

The wiring fixed, all that was left to do was to set the valve clearances. Unfortunately, this requires me to rotate the engine to TDC. The proper way to do this is by rotating the crankshaft using the bolt on the alternator. However, the alternator is in an oil-sealed part of the bike, and I filled the bike with oil earlier this week. Being lazy, I decided to try to rotate the engine by putting it in gear and spinning the rear wheel. This required putting on the chain, which I did. I intend to set the valves tomorrow, and try to officially start the engine on Wednesday (yes, I’ve been setting start dates for the last few weeks).

The points and valve gap adjustments

The points and valve gap adjustments

Alongside of the engine-starting stuff, I’ve been mounting some of the last few major parts of the bike. This includes the turn signals, the headlight, the fenders, the front brake, the hand controls, and the gauges.

The first thing to go on were the turn signals and headlight. They were fairly easy to install, though I had to fabricate some rubber spacers for the headlight bucket. There’s still a lot of wiring that needs to be done in the area between the forks, and it’s pretty daunting. It should be fairly easy once I get the hand controls installed though.

This morning I received my shipment of a seat and the new hand controls of the bike. I bought a set of some generic motorcycle controls, as they’re way cheaper than the original controls. I’ll have to find a way to wire and mount them. Also, the seat that I got was not meant for the bike. I’m considering shipping it back and demanding a refund, but I’m running short on time for the project. I may just build myself some sort of mounting bracket and make do.

To-do list:

  • Set the valve clearances
  • Start engine
  • Finish installing front brake assembly
  • Install speedo and tach (along with gauge lights)
  • Get the hand controls mounted

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